From the Clouds to the Resistance

Dalla nube alla resistenza

Directed by Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub

Italy, West Germany, 1979

Drama

Synopsis

The film’s first part, based on writer Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues with Leucò, features six imagined conversations between ancient Greek figures. In a second part, based on Pavese’s The Moon and the Bonfires, an emigrant returns to his village after WWII in search of traces of his previous life.

From the Clouds to the Resistance Directed by Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub

Show all (5)

Awards & Festivals

Cannes Film Festival

1979

Locarno International Film Festival

1979

International Film Festival Rotterdam

1980

Viennale

2004

2006

Show all (16)

Cast & Crew

Articles from the Notebook

A Straub-Huillet Companion: “From the Clouds to the Resistance”

Straub-Huillet’s first adaptation—perhaps inspired by Italo Calvino—of Italian novelist, poet, and translator Cesare Pavese.

“The Reader Collaborates with the Author in Every Book”: Some Words About Straub-Huillet

A tribute to Straub-Huillet from critics, programmers, filmmakers, curators and more.

Jean Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet: Films and Their Sites

A visit to a New York gallery honoring the work of the French filmmaking duo, currently the subject of a retrospective at the MoMA.

Our Daily Bread #8

Exploring “American Sniper” through images, and films by John Ford, Manoel de Oliveira, Straub-Huillet, King Vidor & Mizoguchi.

Show all (33)

What are people saying?

msmichel's rating of the film From the Clouds to the Resistance
msmichel

Aptly named feature from Huillet/Straub that is a series of conversations (adapted from two different sources) set in two distinct time periods. Gods...men...and inherent violence. Not for all tastes.
August 16, 2019 06:34
- 2
- 0
dionysus67's rating of the film From the Clouds to the Resistance
dionysus67

From myth to enlightenment and back via a revolution's real utopia. Such is this Straub/Huillet time-space keyhole into a philosophy of history, one that unites classical Greece to partisan anti-fascist struggle, undergirded by a critique of primitive accumulation. Formally, the utopia is already in place as the camera breaches character identification and expands space to a non-enclosed experience of abundant awe.
August 12, 2019 03:25
- 5
- 0
Marc St-Cyr (Death cinéphilia)'s rating of the film From the Clouds to the Resistance
Marc St-Cyr (Death cinéphilia)

Barely understand it (need a second Tv's screening). I found that the texts were difficult to follow and to understand. So, i didn't felt engage as i felt for Othon (which it's more exacting and mind-blowing for me). Still a major cinematographer work.
August 15, 2019 10:12
- 5
- 1
Lynch/Fellini's rating of the film From the Clouds to the Resistance
Lynch/Fellini

The way Straub-Huillet juxtapose the ancient to the contemporary is uniformly amazing and their use of text is innovative and simply inspiring!
August 16, 2019 23:12
- 3
- 0
Jason's rating of the film From the Clouds to the Resistance
Jason

In the aftermath of a first viewing, I definitely have the impression, for what it's worth, that DALLA NUBE is the most beautiful and profound of the ten Straub-Huillet films I have seen to date. Placing its discourse in terms of antiquity and the colloquy of Gods (immortals) and Men (mortals), it foregrounds the persistence and longevity of the conscious-being-who-must-die's need to project an intimate infinite.
August 11, 2019 06:26
- 0
- 0
Hamish's rating of the film From the Clouds to the Resistance
Hamish

horrible direction - tedious tennis action headshots ad nauseum paired with lead-footed iambic drivel that even a Hellenic mythos fan like me finds overworked and plodding to the point of an anti-insomniac effect. Only the landscape is at all tempting. All pretense and no substance. It's what most of the post-war art world was shaking off with great relish for a taste of something un-regurgitated.
September 15, 2019 00:29
- 7
- 0
Artyom Yakovlev's rating of the film From the Clouds to the Resistance
Artyom Yakovlev

Straub/Huillet continue to explore the structure of mankind, the nature of inequality, the never-ending dilemmas of religion and superstition by comparing two different types of a society - an ancient one and a modern one - thus crossing cultural, generational and historical borders. However, after having watched some other films by the tandem, you have a sense of deja-vu: if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.
August 15, 2019 12:52
- 1
- 0
Eric S.'s rating of the film From the Clouds to the Resistance
Eric S.

100% agree with Hamish. Almost no camera movement. Actors reciting dialogue they don’t believe in an unvarying monotone. No dramatic tension, no character development, no real story to become interested or involved in. A sad waste of 1:45.
August 03, 2019 22:11
- 1
- 0